A Cut Above
By Magda McKune
Part Three
CHAPTER 9
Carol walked into the green room and found Amy Coy sitting on the couch reading a fashion magazine. The young blonde squealed with delight and leaped to her feet. She ran to Carol and flung her arms around her neck, kissing the woman passionately on the mouth. "Hello! Hello! You sexy wonderful woman you!" she exclaimed happily.
Carol chuckled and caressed her hands over Amy's back. "Somehow I get the feeling you missed me."
Amy leaned back and smiled at her companion. "I do miss you, honey bunny! You are my best non-business friend I have! I love you lots and lots!"
The woman smiled and tenderly kissed the girl on the lips. "I love you too, darling." She affectionately patted the girl on the rear. "Let's go take care of this gorgeous hair of yours, shall we?"
Amy sat in the styling chair as her hairdresser curled the tips of her strawberry blonde tresses. "Carol, honey," Amy asked candidly, "do you like being a hair stylist?"
"Of course I do. I wouldn't have been doing it for twenty years if I didn't."
"I was thinking it might be fun to learn. Would you teach me?"
Carol regarded her curiously. "What brought this on all of a sudden?"
"I don't know. I guess I was taking stock of my life and wasn't overly thrilled of where I am or where I was going. I mean, here I am, 24 years old, and what am I doing? Fucking guys and girls, which is not the worst thing a gal could do, I'll have you know, but not exactly a valuable skill set."
"I thought you liked being a porn star?"
"I do, but in this business, 24 is practically over the hill. Hardly anyone makes it up to 30. The ones that do end up playing parents of porn stars in artsy films. The older you get, the fewer the offers and the parts get shittier. So I'm good for another five or six years and then I'm out on the street without a lot of marketable skills. Sure, I can answer the phone, but who wants an ex-porn star as their secretary or receptionist? People will think I fuck and suck the boss all day. The women will hate me and the men will hit on me all the time thinking I'm a cheap slut and an easy lay because of my past. No thank you."
"So you want to become a hair stylist?"
"Yeah! Now there's a career I can slide into in my off time and do full time when I get too old to act."
"Like me?"
"I didn't say that, sweetie! You are still gorgeous for your age. But you can leave the film business anytime you want. I envy and admire that. I want to have another skill where I can walk away from this life before I'm booted out on my ass."
Carol laughed and curled another lock of the girl's hair. "Of course I'll teach you, darling. To tell you the truth, working here at the studio takes me away from my salon a lot. I could really use a partner to cover for me."
"A partner!" Amy squealed with undisguised enthusiasm.
"Junior partner, maybe," Carol emphasized. "You don't even know how to trim bangs yet."
"But I can learn if you teach me."
Carol thought in silence for a long while as she styled the young woman's tresses. "Tell me, Amy... do other girls feel the same way as you do about the business?"
"About making fuck flicks? Sure. A lot of the girls I talk to think it's great, but they don't see it as a long term career. You see, they're lured into films for the money. The job pays pretty well for pretty girls and stud boys to fuck and suck on camera. A lot more money than you can make in a job that pays minimum wage. As you might guess, most of us don't have college degrees. Add lack of education to the stigma of an unsavory profession and your chances of finding a decent job drop to practically nil. There was this one girl though. Her name was Sherry something. She left the business to become a fashion model. But the stigma of the career followed her. She got labeled as the porno model. Folks thought she was a slut and would bang anybody for a buck. Maybe she was that way, I don't know. All I know is that it killed her career and she came back to making fuck films again. Her heart wasn't in it after that and one night she died of a drug overdose. None of us wants that to happen to them."
The woman was contemplative for a spell. "Do me a favor, Amy. Check around and casually ask if learning to do hairstyling is something other actors are interested in."
"You mean like you might offer a class or something? That would be great!"
"Something like that. Maybe as an avenue to give you folks in the business something to do on your days off. Ask the men too. They might be interested as well."
"Okay!" Amy giggled with excitement. "This sounds really cool!"
Barry Sullivan poked his head in the door. "Carol, may I have a word with you in private?"
"Sure." Carol set her styling tools aside. "Back in a minute, Amy." She stepped out of the door with the director.
The man closed the door behind them. "Honey, I'm in a real bind. The woman I had slated for the scene today just called. It seems she had an attack of kidney stones. Dammit!"
Carol furrowed her brow with a quizzical look. "What does that have to do with me?"
"She was an older woman."
"I see. So you think that because you just so happen to have an old lady hanging around, you can have me step in on one of your fuck films. No thank you."
"Age isn't the only reason I need you and you know it. You are an incredible actress, Carol. I need someone to step in and save my ass, pronto. I have actors sitting on the stage twiddling their thumbs on the studio's dime and I don't have time to call in another actress. You can do this and save my bacon in the process."
Carol expelled her breath in a huff. "This was not part of our deal, Barry."
"I know. But you already did a scene with Paul Rogers and you know the ropes. Nick is cool with you acting in fuck flicks, and I'll pay you double the rate for stepping in at the last minute like this."
"How much is the going rate?"
"A hell of a lot more than trimming hair."
She scowled at the man. "You are going to owe me big time for this, buster."